Beautiful pictures. It's 5:00 am. I'm drinking coffee, and already thinking about what you're going to make with that lovely garlic.

Di

Ann,

My cousin's husband grows garlic and gave me a head of it. What a huge difference! I never knew that garlic would resemble a fresh onion when cut (the texture), or that it would be as crisp as fresh celery. What a treat! Also, discovered it is more pungent.
Yours are fabulous.
Jo

Ann, how do you keep it, so that it keeps so long?

Last summer when my neighbor was bringing me 5 gallon buckets of tomatoes, I made and froze lots of sauce.
Garden tomatoes, garlic from the farmer's market, oregano, parsley and basil from my own herb patch.....nothing better!
I have one small container still in the freezer......best I eat it before the tomatoes start again!

When I cook for the church I insist on fresh garlic. One woman asked if I really thought there was much difference in taste between fresh and that chopped stuff in the jar....
Abolutely!
Linda C

Gorgeous pictures,Ann.

Shelley

Nothing is better than Fresh Garlic

Amen.

I agree, Ann, nothing better than truly fresh garlic, which isn't all that common in a lot of places.

That would be a hard necked garlic? I find that the hard necked varieties keep very well, but as Jo mentioned, the fresh stuff can be a lot more pungent than the kind I buy at my local grocery and so I have to be a little more careful with it.

When I finally get out to the farm I can stop growing garlic in my flower box and actually grow it in the ground, then I'll get bigger heads. Right now I tend to get one or two cloves of garlic per head, about the size of my thumbnail, because it doesn't have room to spread out or enough sun because of the shade from my front porch roof.

Beautiful, beautiful garlic, Ann, I love those purple varieties too.

Annie

Any suggestions for the garlic? I just picked my first crop of garlic and will grow again. They were so easy and are huge. Now, I am just looking at them not knowing what to make. Isn't it crazy that it is actually juicy? The first time I had fresh garlic it sprayed when I smashed it. I was shocked, I always thought it was a dry thing. I got my cloves from the farmers market last year and will go back for a couple of different varieties for next years crop.

"POLLO ALLA SICILIANA"
Capelli d'Angelo in Brodetto di Pollo alle Erbe*
Sautéed chicken in herbed broth with angel hair pasta

Serves 8

Ingredients

2 small whole, chicken breasts, boned and skinned, cut into thin strips
6 Tbs flour
1/2 Tbs red pepper flakes
1 tsp fresh ground pepper
salt to taste [optional]
4 Tbs yellow onion, sliced thin
6-8 cloves garlic, sliced
4 Tbs butter
6 Tbs olive oil
½ cup tomatoes, seeded, peeled, diced
1 tsp dried oregano (or a couple of sprigs of fresh)
4 Tbs fresh basil, chopped
2 Tbs fresh parsley, chopped
12 ounces chicken broth
12 ounces angel hair pasta

Directions

Flatten chicken breasts and cut into thin 1/2" by 1" strips. In a plastic storage bag, mix flour, pepper flakes, and ground pepper. Put chicken strips into bag and shake.

Slice onion and garlic. If using fresh tomatoes, peel, seed, and chop. Chop parsley and basil.

When all ingredients are prepared, put water on to boil for the pasta.

Heat 1/2 of the butter and olive oil in a large skillet on medium high heat. Add 1/2 of the chicken strips and brown each side lightly. Remove chicken from skillet with a slotted spoon, add remainder of butter and oil, heat, and add remainder of chicken. Remove when browned.

Add onion to skillet, reduce heat, and sauté until soft. Scrape chicken bits from bottom of skillet. Add garlic and sauté briefly (not brown).

Add tomatoes, oregano, basil, and parsley. Mix thoroughly and heat well. For a thicker "sauce", add a tablespoon or so of the remaining dredging flour at this point.

Add chicken stock and simmer until reduced by 1/3.

Return chicken to skillet, mix thoroughly, and reduce heat to lowest setting.

Add pasta to boiling water.

Put drained pasta onto plates in small nests and spoon chicken and sauce onto pasta.

Garnish: light sprinkle of chopped fennel leaf, parsley, basil

Joe

Di, last night I minced a clove on the microplane and rubbed it over a small prime rib before grilling it. And I tossed some fingerling potatoes with more garlic.

Jo, yes fresh is amazing. Because this garlic is soooo fresh it is still very juicy.

Linda, you are right to insist on the real thing. There is no substitute for fresh garlic.

Terri, the reason it keeps so long is because it is fresh and I store it in one spot away from any heat source. The reason garlic sprouts is because of the change of temperatures it goes through. Most of the garlic in our grocery stores comes from Asia. It is transported in refrigerated units and then when it gets to its destination it is stored in warm warehouses. And, then it is moved out into a warmer grocery store. The change from cold to warm is what causes it to start sprouting.

Annie, remember you sent me a few of your garlics? They might have been small but they were big on flavour.

Ann

Cookie, Before storing your garlic make sure it has been "cured".

I plan to plant garlic this fall. At $2.00 to $4.00 a head I think I would like to give growing my own a try.

Joe, thanks, that recipe sounds delicious.

Great Pictures!

If you really like fresh garlic, you need to grow your own. Much better from a cost perspective. It is SO easy to grow. You just set it in the fall and pretty much let it do its thing until July. If you have a really dry spring and summer some water is called for but man it is easy.

If you live in the Northwest, you really need to check out the selection at Territorial Seed Company. They have about 25+ selections, ranging from relatively mild elephant garlic to some truly hot varieties (which I like).

Oh my gosh -- I actually prefer the jarred stuff (don't hate me!). "Fresh" garlic is just too potent for me, especially in any kind of raw dip that I make. I also admit that I dislike how it makes my cutting board, utensils and especially my hands stink!

They are beautiful pics though!

I went on my monthly big shopping expedition on Saturday and needed garlic. I could only get wreaths or baskets, and ended up buying a basket of really fresh Solo garlic. Since I don't use garlic that often, I knew it would just dry up, so I took half of it, pulped and froze it. The smell was so wonderfully fresh, almost sweet, that I wanted to eat the garlic raw.

Yes, Ann, I remember sending you fresh garlic. Since mine's so small, I just have to plant more. It's a good thing it keeps well...

Since it's stronger than those big white heads from the grocery store, I don't use as much anyway.

I do wonder, though, why more local gardeners don't grow garlic, you never see it at the farmer's markets here.

Annie

I will tell you what is better than fresh garlic;

Fresh garlic scapes are way better than garlic. They are very expensive, if you can find them.

dcarch

Garlic Scapes are good but I wouldn't say they are better than garlic. More like a green onion with a garlic flavour. The are easy to find here. Early in the season they are sold by the same vendors at the farmers markets that I buy the garlic from. I don't remember what I paid for them.

Stir fryi, I guess that is why they sell garlic in a jar or powdered. Something for everyone. I love garlic so much it doesn't bother me to get it on my hands or my boards and utensils. It washes off. You would really hate the fresh garlic, because it is so juicy it really gets all over hands and boards. A little salt or fresh lemon rubbed on the hands before washing is a quick way to get rid of the garlic smell. And you can rub your wooden cutting boards with salt and a lemon to get rid of odors.
Ann

Ann,
Definitely plant some garlic!
For me, it's got to be THE easiest crop I grow.
Pop it in the ground in November, ignore it all winter.
Maybe it gets watered a little between April and June, depending on the weather.
Harvest in July. No keeping up with it, no monitoring for fruit ripeness, easy, easy, easy!

I agree with queequeg99, Territorial Seed has a great selection! But........you'll want to think about ordering NOW! They sell out of some varieties very quickly!!

I grew "Music" this year and it's wonderful! You can order now and they will wait until the appropriate planting time to bill you and ship!

Territorial Seed is only about 30-40 miles from me. I've been into their very small retail store. The majority of their business is mail order. The store is right at the testing fields so that's fun to see!

JMHO,
Deanna

My husband has severe indigestion from raw garlic unless I cook it forever so the jarred garlic - which I use without cooking- has been a blessing for things like hummus and stir fries.
I still plan on growing garlic someday- my sil does and one year she gave me a bottle of homemade garlic powder and it was wonderful!

My FIL also had severe indigestion from fresh garlic....but he could eat things I cooked with it....because I made sure they were low fat.
A little smashed fresh garlic smeared over a chicken breast which is them grilled or bakes won't cause problems, but that same garlic on top of a sausage pizza loaded with mozarella will. A garlicy pasta with a side of greasy garlic bread will assuredly give me indigestion, but the same amount of garlic mixed with yogurt of low fat sour cream and put on top a baked potato won't cause problems.
And roasted garlic liberally spread on Italian bread causes no problems at all!.
Experiment...you may come up a winner!

Beautiful photo of garlic ann_t!

We love garlic also. Planted 6 varieties this year:

Boyatyr-great bulbs of fire
Italian Late
Elephant-bought from Amish in Iowa
Purple Glazer
Siberian-beautiful purple stripe inside
Inchelium Red-somehow got lost in the digging of the garlic

Some of these varieties are new to us this year, so havent had time to use them yet. A few of the garlics are still curing.

Some of the different ways we have used the garlic is when roasting vegetables there are always at least 10 or more cloves mixed in. Yesterday we did fresh fat green beans with garlic...that was so good. Used some fresh garlic in marinade for sirlion steak on the grill. Hubby loves fresh potatoes out of the garden, mashed with lots of roasted and fresh garlic. Also roasted chicken stuffed with lots of garlic under the skin.

Lovely photo :-) you are quite the food photographer.

In terms of storing it:
I bought garlic recently, and the guy said something about it not being cured all the way-- I think the paper has to be dried out so it doesn't get moldy. I think you can do this by using the leg of pantyhose with a knot between each bulb, so you get good air circulation (Ann?)

I also experimented with the freezer, and was very pleased with the results. I did two batches, one with diced garlic and one with whole cloves. (Incidentally, stirfryi, have you tried covering entire cloves in oil and slooooow sauteeing them? It's an incredibly mild, nice garlic flavor. Alton Brown had a special-- the smaller you chop it, the stronger it tastes, something about breaking cell walls and something reacting with something to create the strong garlicky smell when you chop it). I sauteed the garlic, let it cool a little, and poured it, oil and all, into a plastic container and froze it, then dumped out the ring of frozen garlic oil and cut it into pieces, and put them in a Ziploc in the freezer, so I could just grab a slice and throw it into whatever. I'm quite pleased with the taste.

And I vote for cloves in the cloves-scapes war :-D